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Is it bad to keep a 1911 stored cocked & locked for an extended period of time?

Scenario: Come home with my C&L ccw 1911, store it in my gun vault in that condition until I take it out and carry the next day.

Will any spings wear out sooner or safety concerns?

I do the same with my carry pistol, however I do go to the range every other week, so it gets its exercise and a complete cleaning afterward. I would not recommend storing one for several months in a safe; I have never done this, so I am not sure if it would weaken any springs or not, but something in the back of my mind tells me not to do it. Maybe one of our more knowledgeable members will fill us in on this one.

Thanks for the response AOCM. I feel the same way about keeping my 1911 C&L
24/7, maybe an unwarranted concern. I used to carry revolvers for ccw and got used
to just pick it up and go. Having to clear a pistol when I store it, then having to
chamber a round when I pick it back up seems like it would do a number on the SD
rounds in the pistol.

I've had 1911s in my safe cocked and locked for over a year. The gun was designed to be carried that why. Storing it that way would have no I'll effect.

It won't hurt it, but "Designed to be carried that way" is a myth with no basis in fact. It was designed to be carried in any one of several ways, including at half-cock.

Browning and Colt Dream Team added the manual slide-locking safety on the US Cavalry's request after evaluating the first 8 prototypes delivered in 1910...which didn't have thumb safeties. The reason the cavalry wanted it was for temporary reholstering in order to free up both hands when the mounted trooper found himself trying to hang onto a frightened, unruly horse. Even in those unenlightened days, the boys realized that a man under stress could forget to get his finger out of the trigger guard...and that jamming a cocked pistol into a holster could result in a wounded horse or soldier.

The cavalry is also the reason for the grip safety. A wounded cavalryman pistol dropping the pistol from horse height is likely to invert the gun and strike the ground muzzle up. If the trigger isn't blocked by the grip safety, the trigger's momentum would cause it to bump the disconnect, rotating the sear out of the hammer hooks and firing the gun upward. A charging cavalry unit has enough incoming without their own pistols firing at them. It was understood that some of them may unhook the lanyard to get it out of the way.

The 1911 can be carried cocked and locked...but it wasn't designed specifically to be carried cocked and locked.

Incidentally, the "locked" part of cocked and locked refers to the slide...not the hammer. It was to prevent pushing the slide out of battery during the hasty reholstering, and possibly not returning when the pistol was redrawn. A genuine concern in a war zone where the pistol's cleanliness could be neglected.

Here is one of only two of the original 8 1910s in existence. How could Condition 1 have been Browning's intent if the first ones didn't even have a manual safety?

I was once personally involved with a commercial Government Model that had been discovered in an attic...stored in Condition One...for 62 years. It was stored there by the owner's wife following his sudden death from a heart attack in the mid-summer of 1929. After clearing the chamber for a cursory examination...I returned the chambered round, and fired the pistol to slidelock. It functioned perfectly.

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